It is widely recognized that good problem solving and thinking skills need to be learned and supported. The availability of computers and electronic information bring an opportunity to support this need. There is today no approach that teaches and supports creative problem solving and thinking as a whole, integrated discipline, including the evolution of the person's understanding of the problem, exercising of logic and judgment, development of knowledge and ideas, and the mastery of a comprehensive answer.
Today's problems are often complex, many are highly qualitative and difficult to specify, many often lack absolute answers. At the same time, information availability is almost limitless. In addition, more alternative points of view lead to and require more complicated arguments and solutions. In school, problems like understanding the causes of WWII and its impact on the peoples and governments of Europe, in business problems like deciding whether a widely held directional view is accurate or desirable—both are examples that demand understanding multiple inputs, multiple possible solutions and many thinking interrelationships.
Educational experts including the U.S. Department of Education recognize thinking and problem solving as a significant and important challenge for educators and workers in the 21st century. In a 2003 report, skills critical to teach children for the future include: “thinking and problem-solving skills that use information and communications technologies to manage complexity, solve problems and think critically, creatively and systematically.”
Today, the teaching of problem solving and thinking and related topics occurs as a result of many disparate activities. Beginning in about the fourth grade and continuing through high school, college and into adulthood, students are exposed to some of the components of problem solving in manners designed to increase their understanding, experience, and comfort. In the fourth grade, they often have their first exposure to independent research. Most are exposed to the scientific process and its defined steps and to some form of steps for researching and writing papers; some have experiences in developing multi-media presentations. But these exercises are mostly taught separately and independently, and unpredictable in their results. Whether a student becomes an “end to end” problem solver—capable of defining a problem, finding and researching information, developing their own understanding, defining alternatives and eventually an answer supported by their work—is uncertain.
Computer and information technology support of problem solving and thinking is fractured and focuses primarily on the information handling activities. Separate and independent software programs support search and retrieval, information manipulation and management, information presentation and communication, and others. While this may be comfortable for many adults, little computer support exists for “thinking” and analysis logic particularly for the more qualitative topics that predominate. There are no software enabled processes that help guide good thinking and address the complexity of today's problems.
It is also well documented that different people learn differently (Howard Gardner, in Frames of Mind, The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, for example). Similarly, adults solve problems by applying their own styles. These alternative learning and problem solving styles may be equally good as long as they lead to an equally good “answer” and the thinking that has occurred has developed a robust, internally valid set of understanding and choices, sound logic and consistent support of conclusion and arguments.
The learning of many skills is enhanced by observing models; students and adults often learn by observing and emulating model behavior. Expert problem solvers know how to approach the problem, how to organize their thinking, how to manage the information and knowledge activities they need to do, how to evaluate where they are along the way and adjust their emphases to achieve a good result. Teachers and expert adults can try to serve as models in teaching problem solving, but consistent, comprehensive problem solving and thinking models are hard to find and even harder to see and understand.
There is a need for a software tool that enables and supports a comprehensive problem solving and thinking process, especially in information intensive situations.